Cars and Driveways and Dreams

This is still the same day but tomorrow morning Amena has an appointment at 8:00 am with an oral surgeon in Worcester so I’m not going to have much time in the morning and I might not have much time in the early afternoon if she gets right in and it doesn’t take too long. So, I’m going to talk about the driveway.

Yesterday Amena went with Lincoln and Joanna to get her first car. That’s a pretty big deal, in my book. It is my belief that it will make my life much easier because I won’t have to perform taxi services for Amena anymore. If she misses the bus, she can drive to school. She can take herself to and from work. If she needs to stay after school to work on something, she can do it. If she wants to go visit someone, she can. It won’t matter that I won’t be home; she’ll be able to do what needs to be done and I won’t have to worry about finding or helping her find a ride. Believe me when I say I am totally and completely okay with her having a car.

Amena's new car from the shovel path. There is room for another car.

She got home yesterday and parked in the driveway. She and her brothers went to bed.

Paul got home. He called me while he was outside still to let me know there was a car in the driveway. “It’s Amena’s,” I said.

“Oh. Well, she’s going to be blocked in.”

“That’s okay.” She wasn’t planning on going anywhere until after school anyway because it still needed an inspection.

“I’ve got groceries. I can’t bring them all in.” He isn’t supposed to lift anything heavier than ten pounds.

This one I took from the driveway by the mailbox. I suppose it probably looked much different in the dark. Especially to someone who admits his night vision is not good.

“Are they perishable?”

“I can bring almost everything but not…..” I didn’t hear what the not was. “I just don’t want it to freeze.” Understandable. It was supposed to get down to 27° last night; I’m not sure it did but if not, it was pretty close. This morning I went out to see what didn’t get brought in and it was a gallon jar of pickles. There’s so much vinegar and salt in those it would take colder temperatures to freeze it; they were fine.

He came in and I already knew he needed to eat because he was grumpy. That’s the way it works. He expressed doubts and misgivings about Amena having a car, especially in light of the email from her teacher a few days ago indicating that she was failing English.

It is very hard to talk to him when he is in one of these hunger induced moods. Nothing is good enough and I always make excuses for the children. I try to listen to what he’s saying and respond as best I can but I’m afraid I fail because, as I mentioned, nothing is good enough.

He said that she needs to learn how to park and that if people want to park, they need to shovel so there is room because “there isn’t any room to park down there.” I admittedly hadn’t gone out to see exactly how she parked but I knew where I parked the white car and I knew that when he left for work, he moved the silver car to the other side of the white one so he could take the blue one. Even with an additional car, there should have been plenty of room. I did go out later to get something I’d left in the car and it didn’t seem to me that there was any lack of space or that more shoveling really needed to be done. Of course, different people do have different perspectives.

Anyway, just a rather unpleasant late evening.

I went to bed once I had submitted an assignment for Third Stage Management and took (and got 100%) on the quiz for that unit. It didn’t take long to get to sleep because I was tired.

Just before my 5:00 alarm went off, I had a dream and I'm pretty sure in was very influenced by the verbal exchange before I went to bed.

We had moved into a different house. It had a long hallway and all the bedrooms were off it. Amena had just painted her room so that it was white at the top by the ceiling, blue at the bottom, and they blended together a little higher than half-way up the walls. It looked really cool. There was one room that was a cluttered mess and from the looks of it, the mess wasn’t anything that belonged to me, Amena, or the boys and it didn’t look like anything that would be Paul’s either.

I was out in the garden one afternoon (that looked very much like the one we had in Greenview the summer before Laura was born) and was picking some carrots and asked Amena if she could get one particular one for me. It was out of my reach and I think I had Maddie with me. Amena said she couldn’t get it because she had zero specific gravity. I have no idea if that actually means anything but in my dream, it meant that she was pregnant but was probably going to lose the baby. I wasn’t about to tell anyone else, though, even though I wanted to at least tell Joanna and Laura.

Later, we were in the house and Paul was upset. He was really letting Amena have all kinds of heck about getting a car. He said that although she may have earned the ability to get the car, that didn’t mean she had earned the ability to drive it. I don’t really remember Amena saying anything but she was certainly getting angry and she ended up leaving with Lincoln and Joanna who were both at the house. My mom or Laura was there as well, but I’m not quite sure which one it was.

At that point, I needed to use the bathroom and if I have to in a dream, it means I have to for real. My alarm went off and I got up. Amena was already in the shower so I went downstairs to use the bathroom. I made sure Cedric was awake and then I went back to bed for a few minutes.

Due to the nature of the dream, there was no way I was going to get back to sleep so I got up for good at 5:20. I started the whole smoothie and hot chocolate morning routine and waited for Amena to be done in the bathroom.

I did want to tell Amena about this dream because she figured so prominently in it so once she was dressed, I did. When I told her she was pregnant I said, “And that wasn’t the worst thing,” and she made an entirely appropriate face which is somewhat beyond description. That was funny.

Other than the strange dream, it was a pretty good day. The boys got their work done pretty well. We started reading a book for science about Marie Curie. The introduction wasn’t that exciting even though the author attempted to add some humor.

Seth and I did do a bit of shoveling. It was so nice out that the three of us agreed it was too nice to be inside.

When Amena got home, I went with her for the inspection. The car failed but she ought to be able to take it to the place she got it and they ought to fix it for her. If not, she now knows what she can do about it. Then we went to the credit union and then home.

Seth had scouts tonight and is all set to go on the campout this weekend. It sounds like fun to me and I need to remember to email someone something about that.

And now it’s time for me to get myself to bed so I’ll be off and hopefully this will be posted in the early am tomorrow.

Have a terrifical day!